I still have a few Brilliant Green albums in my old MP3 Archive. Would love to be able to buy fresh (and legal!) editions via iTunes, but they're not there. Neither are Tomoko's other Tommy February and Tommy Heavenly pseudo-groups.

Plenty of DaI's stuff, though, including their lovely "2 of Us" acoustic albums.

I don't see how importing CDs would keep the artist from getting any money, unless you mean money from the markup that is added. In reality, I think the artist would get more money as there is now a CD sale that wouldn't have occurred before as the CDs are not available in the US market.

But why should the artist get more? I am getting nothing extra, nor is the artist/producers doing any extra work. Why should it matter to them whether I go to Japan and by it myself or have a company buy it on my behalf? The only reason why I can see it making a difference is if the artist/producers have different deals with different countries, where importing could circumvent those agreements, but everything I've bought were not available in the US at the time.

After all, a farmer isn't paid more because his crops end up in a restaurant instead of my kitchen, and a mechanic isn't paid more because the vehicle is driven across country instead of around town.

If I can give more to the original creator than to “the people who are making money inbetween” then I would much prefer to do that.

A bonus edition with extra goodies is usually worth it for the price of the goodies.
If I’m paying for a chef to cook with the ingredients, then I’m happy paying the extra for that.
The mechanic will rip everyone off no matter what.

If all I’m contributing towards is shitty import duty, then that can naff right off.
For a CD that would’ve been mastered over a decade ago, it's just paying other people for the privilage of owning something.